The present invention relates to chair bases, particularly pedestal type chair bases where base arms radiate from a central hub and are covered or encapsulated with plastic.
For many years, it has been fairly common to provide base arms of pedestal bases with some type of rubber pad or plastic cover. The rubber pads are typically nailed or screwed in place. Some rubber or plastic base arm covers have covered all or substantially all of the base arm.
A problem with such prior art plastic covers is that ugly fasteners are often visible. These fasteners are used to secure the base arm covers in place. In addition or alternatively, manufacturers have difficulty keeping the plastic covers in place on the base arms when the bases are in use in the field. In modern chair bases where the base arms are made of tubular steel, it is particularly difficult to suitably secure the base arm covers to the steel tubes of the base arms.
There is a tendency for prior art chair bases employing plastic base arm covers to look "patchy" or "pieced together". This is true even where attempts are made to cover the entire base. Prior artisans have apparently been unable to satisfactorily secure integrally molded base covers to the underlying steel base. While there may be other reasons for the failure of prior artisans to employ integrally molded base covers wherein all of the base arm covers are molded as part of a single unit, the difficulty of positively securing such a base cover in place has undoubtedly contributed to the failure of prior artisans to employ such integrally molded covers.